Ripping away the curtain

A couple of nights ago I sang the national anthem at a concert given by my local community center. Which wasn’t a terribly big deal, even though it had been the first time I’d sung in public in at least three years. Once I get focused and let the small pang of nervousness run its course, it’s pretty much a happy blur thereafter.

But I stuck around for the balance of the concert, and was immediately reminded of why I have a love/hate relationship with music, and especially going to concerts. A decade of serious voice training as well as several years of rigorous education in musical theory, not to mention perfect pitch, means that it’s rare for me to shut off my analytical brain and enjoy what I’m hearing. And Sunday night was no exception, as I kept hearing wrong chord after wrong chord and reorchestrating the arrangements in my head. By the end of the evening that happy blur had morphed into a state of perpetual twitchiness (which, I grant, was also due to being semi-interrogated prior to the concert about Life Ambitions and the like. But that I expect.)

I bring this up because I’m finding more and more that this overly analytical state is seeping into my ability to sit back, relax and read a book, and frankly, that makes me very sad.

I suppose I should have expected this to happen sooner or later, since I do review books professionally and must approach reading novels — at least, some of them — with a critical eye. But before, I thought of myself as a critical reader, someone who analyzed why a book didn’t work for me and could extrapolate as to whether it would work for other readers or not. Now, I’m wondering if I’ve shifted to being a critical editor or writer, reading a book and seeing its inner architecture, figuring out if the basic structure holds together or if it will all come tumbling down. And then wanting to make changes, or at least suggestions of such.

And, of course, recent attempts to work on fiction more seriously and with extra dedication means that I do read novels to understand how they are constructed, what makes good ones work and bad ones work less well, and see the invisible seams that hold the book together. But still, I’d stubbornly clung to the hope that I could still read as, well, a reader.

A recent incident brought this sea change home to me. I was reading a galley of a debut novel that had received a fair amount of advance buzz. I read the beginning and liked it — interesting voice, lots of story questions, and I was entertained. The book was progressing very nicely.

Then I hit the 50 page mark, and read the opening paragraph of the chapter that began on that page. And when I finished it, a little voice in my head said, “that’s the true opening.”

At first I dismissed it, or tried to, but once the Pandora’s Box was open, there was no way to shut it. I read through that chapter and realized that yes, the book really would work so much better had this been the opening. The story questions were more pronounced, the voice more confident, the tension and stakes far higher. Those first 50 pages? Backstory, really, which could have been integrated into the remainder of the book, or been cut completely — or at least, ³⁄₄ of it.

Then I felt guilty, because surely the novel’s editor — an extremely reputable one — would have spotted this? Or worse, that I was completely overreacting and seeing things that weren’t there? Whatever the case, the analytical brain had roared to life, and would not shut up. I did finish the book, and I think, objectively, it’s a debut that shows promise (and I’ll definitely read more by this particular writer) but the reading experience was ruined. Worse, I felt I’d crossed an invisible threshhold and worried I wouldn’t ever cross back. That I’d always read to deconstruct, to analyze, to critique, and never simply to enjoy.

As it happens, it didn’t prove to be entirely true, but my criteria for what makes a superlative read now has an extra wrinkle or two: if the writing is so good that I can appreciate without nitpicking, and if the book is so good that it makes my analytical brain stay permanently in the “off” mode, then it’s one I’ll recommend with further gusto.

Since I think this particular affliction affects those who write, either for a living or for a hoped living, did this sort of “sea change” happen to you, and when? How do you approach reading fiction when there’s the distinct possibility that your time will be spent analyzing and deconstructing? And does the brain ever switch back, so you’re “just a reader” once more?